musicMagpie or Back Market: which is better for phones?

Type "refurbished iPhone" into a UK search box and these two names come up first. They look similar from the outside: graded phones, a year of warranty, prices well under new. Underneath they are built differently, and the differences show up exactly where refurbished buying goes wrong: who you are actually buying from, what the grade word means, and what happens when something is not right.

Who actually refurbishes the phone?

Back Market is a marketplace. The phone is refurbished and sold by an independent refurbisher; Back Market vets the sellers, sets the standards they have to meet, handles the customer side, and puts its own warranty and returns promise on top. The seller's name is on the listing, and two listings for the same phone at the same grade can come from two different companies at two different prices.

musicMagpie refurbishes in-house. It buys phones from the public through trade-in, tests and refurbishes them in its own facility, and sells them directly from its store. It also lists the same stock on marketplaces such as eBay, so a "musicMagpie" phone on eBay is the same phone with eBay's buyer protection on top.

That single difference explains most of the rest. On Back Market you are choosing between sellers as well as grades; at musicMagpie there is one company to deal with, from the grading to the warranty claim.

What do the grades mean at each?

Neither shop uses the other's words, and the overlap is the trap: "Good" is the bottom rung at musicMagpie and the second rung at Back Market. Here are the two ladders side by side, bottom to top.

musicMagpie describes its grades plainly at the time of writing: Good has noticeable signs of use, including scratches, dents and chips to the casing; Very Good may show very light signs of use; Pristine is cosmetically flawless. All three are fully tested and guaranteed to work. Back Market's Fair, Good and Excellent run the same way, from visible marks to like new, with a Premium tier on some listings above that.

Either way the grade is about appearance, not performance: a phone at the bottom rung should work exactly like one at the top. The battery is the exception, because it is the one component that has genuinely aged, so read what each listing says about it rather than assuming the grade covers it.

Which warranty and returns are better?

This is where they part ways, and the numbers are worth knowing before you compare a single price.

As published by each retailer, checked 12/09/2026; the warranty lengths, return windows and Express Replacement read again on 25/09/2026. Terms change; the listing and the retailer's own page always win.

The warranty is a draw. The change-of-mind window is not: a month to decide beats a fortnight, and it matters most on a grade you have never bought before, when the phone arrives and you find out what "some signs of use" looks like to you. On the other side, musicMagpie's single point of contact is simpler if you would rather not think about which of several sellers you bought from.

Whatever the shop, the Consumer Rights Act sits underneath the retailer's own promise: goods must be as described and of satisfactory quality, and a fault in the first six months is presumed to have been there at purchase unless the seller shows otherwise.

Which is cheaper?

Neither, reliably. Prices move by the day, by the grade, and on Back Market by the seller, so the honest answer is the one on the screen when you buy. What our own checks find is often a difference in stock rather than in price: a phone one shop has can be sold out at the other, so the phones in this table change as stock moves. Here are eight that both shops had in stock refurbished at our checks on 29/09 and 30/09/2026, with the latest prices we hold.

Read that as what we can see, not as a verdict on the two shops. Both block automated price checks, so we reach them through a paid rendering service and only for the products people compare most here: on 20/09/2026 we held Back Market prices for 16 products and musicMagpie prices for 11, out of 195 in the catalogue. The two prices in a row are not always for the same grade: ours for Back Market is its cheapest grade in stock, while the musicMagpie one is for the grade its listing shows, which can be a higher one. If a phone sells out, its cell says so, with the time of our last check.

Here are two of those phones in full, across every seller we check, with the cheapest offer per condition on top:

If you are weighing up Amazon Renewed as well, we compared that against Back Market on 11 phones. Two things to keep in mind when you read any of these rows. Compare the same grade, not the cheapest rung of one shop against the middle rung of the other. And on musicMagpie the price shown is for the grade that is in stock; a grade that has sold out is not a cheaper option you are missing.

Is musicMagpie better than Back Market?

Neither is better for everyone, and the honest answer depends on which of these matters to you.

• You want the longest window to change your mind: Back Market, with 30 days against 14.
• You want one company responsible for everything: musicMagpie, which graded, sold and warrants the phone itself.
• You want a choice of sellers and grades for the same phone: Back Market, where the same model is usually listed several times.
• You are buying on eBay anyway: musicMagpie's eBay listings are its own stock with eBay's protection added, so compare that price against the store's.
• You care about the battery: neither grade word tells you; read the battery line on the listing at both, and check the health figure inside the return window.

What to do

• Decide the grade you can live with first, using each shop's own description, not the shared word.
• Compare the same phone, storage and grade across both, then against the new price, because a refurbished saving is only a saving once the cover is priced in.
• Check the battery line and the seller's name on the listing before you pay.
• Test the phone properly inside the return window: screen, cameras, speakers, buttons, charging, and a full setup with no previous owner's account attached.
• Keep the box and packaging until the window has passed.